


Protecteur, amoureux et combattant

by electric_stydiax



Series: SteelAtom Week 2017 [1]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Let's just say they both have self image isuues, M/M, and they're very very in denial about their feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 05:00:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11177583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electric_stydiax/pseuds/electric_stydiax
Summary: They both lost a flame, and became so cold that it took fate to align them again. Nate fears his love is doomed like the past, and Ray has been walked out on so much he shrank to numb himself to his gifts.Title meaning: protector, lover and fighter.





	Protecteur, amoureux et combattant

Ray never realized he had a soul mate cause his soul mark, which was a coat of arms, because it was 1. On his ass and 2. forming over time, with major events in his signifying how much closer he was getting to his soulmate. Meanwhile, the rumored soul mind connection Soulmates have was as good as dead as far as he was concerned.

During the time when the convergence occurred and Firestorm’s first death in Central City, his soulmate connection just severed because someone(the flame wielder,his mind supplies) died before they ever knew how important they were to each other. 

The night his flame tattoo faded Ray cried and cried for the what could have been if he had gone to Central sooner, if he wasn't so fucking vapid and reached out to him. If he didn't hate himself so deeply. Even after Anna and Felicity, Ray felt a kind of empty not even being the ATOM replaced.

The crippling loneliness didn't let him sleep, the nightmares of dead family members and bloody arms reminding him how at the end of the day, he was still mortal and pathetic in the grand scheme of the universe. Like nothing mattered, like he didn't matter.

Nate Haywood never put too much stock in the cosmic connection of soulmates. As a historian, he saw how the intertwining of multiple souls ended up nearly destroying the world. From Helen of Troy, Romeo and Juliet and even in fictional texts, the destined nearly ended up dead almost always.  
Seeing that when he bleeds he already doesn't heal normally, Nate would rather live in unrequited silence than die as a result of acting on his heart.

He never noticed his flame tattoo fade and crumble as he earned his ph.d and dug deeper into the anomalies warping the past he memorized so intimately. After joining the Legends, he felt something leap out from his chest as he saw Ray Palmer for the first time. Something so strong it caused him to blackout and convulse as a glow overtook him and Raymond.

When Ray met Nate, he noticed his eyes first, and his mind drawing him so close to that stranger, this genius - no, his genius that when their hands touched it elicited a shock on both ends where Ray fainted only moments after Nate did. That throb in his chest was parallel to the pain he felt when he lost his flame.

Nobody ever tells you that the first meeting with your soulmate involves an astral plane or a fucking metaphysical limbo. 

The first thing they both see is each other before Lady Fate faces them. She's laden in flowers and gold, with a silver javelin in her left hand. She holding in an exasperated sigh and begins speaking.

“Do you understand how long you two have searched and fought for each other? How long you denied the other out of pure insecurity? Of shame and fear? You both lost a soulmate because you two couldn't pull it together!! Stop shaming yourself for being soft, for loving so deeply and unrelenting.”

“Nate Heywood, man of history. The past of star crossed lovers is not the fate of your love. They're the exception, never the rule. Open your heart and trust the universe like you do with your studies of the past. You should have no shame in your body or your past, seeing as neither define you in any way. Your heroism and power lie in your mind, not the abilities you acquired. Your mind is all you need, no more and no less.”

“Raymond Palmer, man of many sizes. Do not shrink your worth so that others may walk freely over you like a doormat! You offer so much to universe, and Athena would most displeased to see you downplay the gift she gave you both. She and Hera both worry since you lost your first soulmate before even meeting him. You hold so much worth and value that many would miss your presence if you ceased to exist.”

 

As she finishes speaking, a pair of rings come down the space between them.

As Nate walked towards Ray, the banging in his chest became as strong as the wind on a stormy day. Ray’s heart is so electrified by the glow of Nate’s aura, he starts glowing too. 

 

As they move closer all Ray feels is the universe inside him reaching out to Nate. Seeing the world through Nate’s eyes, reliving the loss of his (their soulmate) and shutting his heart to love. The ache and dullness of the unrelenting weight tugs Ray in such a way that he simply wants to love this man until he dies and lives again, even if it means dying every death for Nate. 

Nate only feels the words brimming on his tongue as his heart and mind experience the isolation and darkness Ray did after Anna died, and Felicity and Kendra leaving him both. The inadequacy that threatened the swallowing of Raymond's entire soul had Nate never found him. As they drifted closer to the other person, he only felt the void of his past shrink under the weight of Ray’s glowing, undying love. Nate knew then, he would kill for this man and die the universe’s death to protect this man for all eternity.

“amor meus, salve, i videri nos non occursum. (hello my love, I thought we would never meet.)

“Bonjour mon amour, je pensais que nous ne le rencontrerions jamais non plus.”  
(Hello my love, I thought we would never meet either.)

Their limbs clash in a tight mass where neither knows where they begin and end, the universe of the historian and physicist becoming everything and anything, life and death, mortality and morbidity all in one.

Nobody really leans in, it's a mutual rush of soft and slightly obscene affection between two lovers who wanted and waited forever it felt like.  
The kiss is messy, flushed, and oh my god it's you it's you it's you, I thought I fuckin lost you. 

When they wake up again, they're in Ray’s bed, clinging to each other because they are all they have and know now. It was the end of the darkness, but the beginning of something so powerful no being but Lady Fate could replicate or replace.

**Author's Note:**

> In case you didn't catch it, they shared a soulmate before he died and that's why they couldn't feel their bond anymore. Had that person (the fire wielder) survived, even if they never acted on their feelings they would've met sooner.


End file.
